There is no evil
by mother moon
Summary: On that rainy day in heaven Asmodeus was reminded once more just how deeply his obsession bled.


**_A/N: I will leave this alone and stop tweaking at some point in my life. _**

**_Disclaimer: I do not own Angel Sanctuary nor its characters, I simply think that Asmodeus and Belial are adorable._**

**_x_**

_My children._

In a crunch of bone, I paused in my tread.

A voice, a cord of painful nostalgia, whispered hoarsely into our ears a numbed and embittered song which flooded the blank forgotten places within our souls. With each ending note of resonate tone it plucked, as delicate as the small tip of a white finger, at those painful strings of the heart the melodic assurance of festering.

We turned in drifts of individuals. Stopped short in our struggle of petty violence as cries wilted upon our lips. Angel and demon, human and devil raised their eyes towards the sky united in confusion. In measured, solemn tones a silence descended and flourished outward.

_Listen._

The wind had developed subtly. Beckoned clouds to settle above our heads like crowns of gloom. I remember its fresh promise of rain chilling the skin at my throat beneath a stiff collar. Indifferent to the clutterofemotion littering the battlefield of heaven. As idle as a stray finger which slipped playfully between the artful tie of a silk cravat.

I lowered my gaze to study the grime ingrained deep within the soft flesh of skin underneath the nail. Although I knew my expression to be lined with its typical boredom, an uncomfortable itch which could not be satisfied cascaded within myself. A disturbance rippling the already unbalanced depths of my spirit. My large, coarse fingers tucked themselves into the swell of expansive silk between the black folds of my cloak seeking a preferred vice to encase between my thin, ironic lips with a decadent smile.

What rotten and desperate declaration did the old, forgotten hermit have to bring? What sigh was left after its long kept silence_? _And at the precise moment when we devils had danced so defiantly against the divine will decreed so absolute by God.

My eyes fell close at the scratch of a match catching, accompanied by the comforting tempo of flame. That bright sound of embers aglow. The rich haze of tobacco mingled with the metallic scent of drying blood as I drew in a smoke filled gasp and felt the cool shades of cloud dulling the colours of the day –purples, blues, scarlet edged with a despondent grey as they billowed around me into an oncoming storm. The wind swept through me. Loosened the long strands of black hair which had clung to my sweat stained forehead. The first few sluggish drops of rain, succeeding the slow roll of thunder, idly spotted the parts of my hand not yet christened crimson.

But for all my scepticism of the comfort I had been sure Adam Kadamon sought to bring us; I had known. From the first syllable the voice had rasped I had known. We had all become ensnared within its pocket of time that consisted of no future and no present save for the current of its confession_. _For who could resist the final gasp of Adam Kadamon? The Holy Hermit. Our androgynous creator. My cursed mother.

I listened to the words as they gave pause for breath.

_The final message I have to bear to you all._

And became a dreadful hesitation.

I remember the rain which spattered itself into the mud and caused the ground to heave under our feet. Cold missiles, intensified in descent, coaxed our flesh to rise and pucker. A little like lover's lips. More so like the cold of uncooked flesh. My smart heel grounded firmly into cracked bone as my chin coasted skyward and the wet cavern of my hungry mouth released clouds of those sinfully sweet vapours. I caught the frozen droplets on my forehead. I felt them out with the muscle of my tongue. With fingers outstretched and palms faced upwards I welcomed them to the physique of my large being. Allowed myself to become drenched in it all. The dry, unfolding flourish of age. The richness of war. The slow souring bewilderment. The bitter tang of broken possibilities. The sweat. The grime. The smoke. The storm. The Voice. The echo. Memory_._

_A cruel trick has been played upon you all, my children._

It was then, at the sound of a wet and dying pant, I caught the waft of her spice. A sharp grip of pleasure as I shivered in the cold.

Belial.

Even if all I was left with was a bloody darkness, I would always be able to make out her twisted figure of deformed grace. A breathe of wind, a sigh from Adam Kadamon, it was all I needed to see a flamed curl torn from its pin. Whisked away from the white paint on her face to lead a hot trail into the cold, death of battlefield and signalled the grand entrance of fragrance stolen from her skin. She had led a merry jaunt across Heaven but I had remained close, ignoring the contempt curled upon her callous lips as she murdered with wondrous brutality. In my mind's eye I could still see her beautiful claws wrapped around the pure throat of a wholesome soul, whose painfully hard huffs had slowed to a shuddering flow amid the lips. Slowed further still. Calmly arriving to a halt.

Oh delightfully succulent Belial. Completely charming in her madness. The moan of her name a consistent chatter amongst the grit of my teeth. I could feel her eyes. Hidden as they were by the shadows gathered below the brim of a peculiar hat as they moved swift then slow. Flickering in motion. Seeking to extract abrupt meaning from the iced plume of a tired sky and attempted to read between lines. As though there was still time for her to pull a joker from the deck of aces she kept hidden in an elaborate sleeve. How often have I dreamt of those eyes I wonder? Of their wide and soulless blue? Electric in gaze.

_The boundaries between good and evil are not so easily defined._

I heard the creak of her leather gloves as her hand tightened. An aggrieved snag in failingrespiration. A thrilled hitch in my own.

In the silence I felt I grasped the edges of the wail I was certain she would give. Despairing, enough to shatter hearts like glass as the makeup of the clown, the guise of the mad hatter, crumbled into dust. I focused upon the memory of her figure. Those brief moments I am allowed to reach for her. How it always feels within my rough unruly hands. Her clean shapeless body. Her disdainful smile. Lips tainted in cold derision spilling clever phrases. Her coyness. Her cruelty. From the moment I had sampled the opulence of her natural spice, I had become enveloped once more in her entirety. As though she had opened her rouged sardonic mouth and devoured me whole.

_Perhaps, from the very beginning, there was no right to follow._

My eyes opened when I heard the last exhale of life concluded and the wet slap of a limp body as it tumbled into the mud. Her sharp, proud chin remained elevated. Her face still obscured with only her mouth, shrunk to a vacant grim line, to be glimpsed at through the rain.

'What a waste.'

The mutter came in a disappointed gust made to no one in particular, its tones divulged nothing. Her head dropped. She turned away. Her long skinny fingers - restless in fussy action straightening her sleeves - revealed emotion. They paused at the edges of her leather gloves, stroked the pallid gap of her slim wrists and I saw in the manner in which her shoulders had settled, loosened to a deceptive ease; she had reached a decision. Upon raising her head once more our eyes met. But in the reflective recess that had followed she tugged the brim of her hat even lower before spinning upon her quick heel, stepping lightly over one of the many corpses, and strode away.

'Here this one thought we were all laughing at Him.'

The illusion that we had all been frozen by the Hermit's spell shattered. She always had been the first to move. Forcing out on a path of destruction that trailed behind and lead into the expanse ahead. The little darling. I discarded my wasted cigar and followed.

'And after all our hard work too.'

I understood her frustration only too well. After all, she'd truly done her very best to be her very worst and now with nothing to show for it. Not even for her beloved Lucifer.

_And Heaven and Hell, never truly did exist._

Blades shimmered in sinking sunlight, connected with the ground in an arduous song of metal as they slipped from a few disconsolate fingers. Sound soon swallowed in their entirety by the crush of egos upon all sides until all that was left was an element of stillness as we continued to brush on pass rows of impassive shoulders.

The Archduke Astaroth, demon of Sloth alone remained crouched low to the dirt. His long lithe limbs coiled into the sodden earth as he picked maliciously at the indistinguishable remains of a nameless soldier. He'd felt our presence as we drew close and raised his head in a gradual and lethargic motion. Hair dark and slickened smoothly against his soft lovely face. Ribbons of crimson traced the tantalizing veins along the inside of his slender arms. Gentle streams pouring from the heart he nursed tenderly in his cupped hands. Fixing us with his golden stare he gracefully stooped his elegant neck and brought its fine pulse to touch with subtle lips. Then, under Belial's coldgaze, a sudden shift of muscle twisted his features as they became laden heavy with a scowl and he a creature quite ugly. The rain slogged towards the ground in violent torrents. He bowed back over his dwindling heart and the moment and my butterfly fluttered on past. Signs of battle reduced steadily to rubble and receding smoke quietly lifting from the edges of buildings in aimless drifts. The world steamed. The voice nothing more than a remote echo.

_This, my children, is the only truth. One you must discover for yourself as you stumble through suffering and confusion._

The pit of my belly stirred. On all sides the once ashen, chaste faces of stone edifices now blackened with filth of war towered. Great beauties which had succumbed so helplessly to their surrounding corruption. I could not have foreseen a more fitting backdrop to our sad little scene; two devils entangled amongst the silhouettes of abandoned ruins; lost within a mere distant resonance of an elapsed past. Where no prying eyes could see us. The tap of my step quietened, quickened. Stealthily, never losing focus upon her small back, I closed the gap between us and reached for her with my longing, greedy grasp. My fingers had felt the hushed promise of touch against her neck before she dislodged them with a furious gesture. Her vicious hiss skimmed my nose as she brought her face close. But still she kept her reserve.

'This one has warned you about that presumptuous touch Lord Asmodeus. It shall not be repeated again.'

I could not keep the derision from my voice.

'This one? still you are _this_ _one_.'

Her breath cooled the vulnerable skin beneath my eye.

'Go on home Asmodeus. Back to your own realms of lust.'

A pause before then she tried to draw herself away from me.

'Leave this fool to be alone.'

Her voice was so clear, so weary. A growl wrapped itself around my sharp teeth, slid down my tongue as my hefty hands snatched up both her lean arms and tugged her back. The speed of my fingers catching myself in slight surprise. She staggered then managed hold herself firm. Her eyes blazed up at me through those smouldering curls before I rolled her into my open arms, pinning her fragile body of poison to the mass of my form. The way I have pinned the wings of all my most striking of treasures. I closed my eyes. Recalled the memory of her body. The way it feels in my hands. Her waist so slight. Those precious moments when I am allowed to touch her. She did not struggle. And it was then I knew that for once, on that day, I was stronger. She is almost as tall as I. It was with such simple movement that I could arc my neck to inhale, deeper than any smoke, her wild almost forlorn scent. Humming seductions into her small ear.

'God is dead. Lucifer is dead. Why not drop this farce? Come home with me.'

The rain began to ease. I could feel the clouds parting. The first glimmer of sun heating my bedraggled scalp. She sagged slightly against my shoulder, resting her pallid forehead - as though exhausted - against the curve of my chin. I want to swallow her whole. I want her to taste the toxin upon my tongue. With a foolish amount of vindictive triumph I thought her mine for good.

_The final message I have to bear._

Her laughter was slow to build, first felt in her trembling shoulders, savage in its bitterness. She stepped away with a depressing amount of ease. Her palms lightly pressed themselves into my broad shoulders as she supported herself slightly. Then her modest waist disappeared from the very tips of my clutch as she moved back further still. She wiped the tears of mirth from her eyes and watched the sky far behind me where the brink of words reverberated back towards us and souls remained unmoved.

'We are all such fools.'

There has never been a moment so hard - so unforgiving - as that straight, conceited back receding as she alighted one of the demonic beasts that had sprawled its thick belly amongst the desecrated marble.

'And this one is in no mood to laugh.'

The magnificent beast, only to be found in the most intimate pits of hell, swept up into the sky in one ghastly swoop of leathery wings and she faded rapidly from sight. The wind dropped to tranquil grumble. The sun slid from behind a roll of cloud. The warmth of its glow concentrated upon my cheekbones. I closed my eyes briefly and lit a cigar. Exhaling unhurriedly, I felt a life deceased stretched into the remote vastness behind me whilst ahead, high in the sky and far from my reach, fled another still animated. Upon opening my eyes once more I concluded they were not so very different.. I abandoned my cigar; a half smoked gesture of impatience, and gave chase. As I always do. Eager for later. When we would entwine our bodies around on another in sadness and confusion. Finding no comfort. For I was still Count Asmodeus; a vile salacious Lord of Lust. And I believe that I shall burn for her forever.

_There is no supreme goodness. There is no ultimate evil._


End file.
